


Incision

by JoAsakura



Series: Arma Dei, Amor Hominis [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Mecha, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-07-19 17:25:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7370908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoAsakura/pseuds/JoAsakura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The operating instructions for the universe need to come with a search function.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Incision

The current Prophet - in Dean's estimation the unluckiest son of a bitch born of his generation and all-around Good Kid - lay his head on the bunker's war table with an unhappy thunk. "This thing needs a search engine." Kevin muttered against the tabletop, gesturing vaguely at the clay tablet before him. He pushed pathetically at a slice of pizza gone long cold and sighed.

"Uhm." Sam exchanged a glance with his brother and Kevin looked up at the both of them, dark eyes bloodshot.

"I always forget, you two don't see it like I do. This isn't just a hunk of clay with wierd shit pressed into it." He said as Sam passed him a cup of coffee. "What I see is fractal, holographic. Information layered on top of information inside of even more. It's the operating system of the universe and it has no search function, so I could literally spend a billion years trying to figure out how to find how to get to Cas. The best I can do is tell you he scuttled himself into Purgatory."

“Purgatory.” Dean said, looking dully at Kevin. The word felt like the goodbye Cas had shoved behind his eyes and forced himself to look away from the kid. "What the fuck is purgatory?"

“Sort of an elephant’s graveyard for Frames. Where they.. Where they can scuttle themselves out of space and time.” He prodded at the tablet. “Hotel California. You can check out, but you can never leave.”

"This was meant to be used by a Frame." Sam took a swig of his own coffee. "Or something similar. Something that could process the data differently than Kevin can."

"Well, we don't exactly have another God gundam lyin' around, Sammy." Dean spat the words out sharper than he intended. Since Sam had found him, naked and screaming in a cornfield, his hands hadn't stopped shaking. He focused on holding the beer, the cold and the wet and the shape of the glass, the smell of the hops wafting out, but it didn't stop.

(Cas had dragged the last of the leviathan somewhere Dean couldn't follow. And now everything felt wrong. Like his entire life had been moved a few inches to the left and he couldn't put it back.)

"Before you suggest we go poke Lucifer in the cage, I'm gonna call Crowley." Dean said before Sam could say anything else. "You are not gettin' within fifty miles'a that mechanical piece of shit."

"He's the only other Frame we know how to find, Dean." Sam poured out coffee for himself and Kevin, conspicuously not watching Dean's hands shake as he flipped to "King Asshole" in his contacts.

~~~

"Please tell me you know how to search this thing. I’m digging through infinite data for a needle.” Kevin said, swigging back his third coffee of the evening.

“Mixing your metaphors, prophet-boy.” Crowley demurred. “But I’m sure my daemons…”

“No.” Dean, Sam and Kevin all said at once, and the King of the Daemons held up his hands.  
“Alright then. Your migraine, boy.”

“Kev called it the Elephant's Graveyard. If it’s like Heaven, then it’s a garage, or.. Or it's a fucking scrapyard. You don't build a scrapyard without a way in or out.” Dean started to pace. “I’m not leaving him in there with the leviathan.”

“That's easy. You need to open a door, so.... To get him out, you need the First Blade.” Crowley said in a voice that sounded exactly the way grease dripping off a pizza looked. Sam was mildly impressed that somehow, he managed to convey that the words were capitalised solely by verbal skill.

“The first blade.” Dean looked up from his beer, eyes hollow. Sam noted that Dean didn’t care about Crowley’s verbal skill and immediately felt somewhat ashamed.

“Forged from the heart of a star, it will cut anything.” Crowley produced a tea cup from somewhere. It smelled like it was full of whiskey and blood.

“Great, so it can fucking cut a can in half then still slice a tomato paper thin.” Dean took a swig of his beer and sat back. “Whoop-de-fucking-do. How’s that supposed to get Cas outta Purgatory?”

“You don’t understand, Squirrel.” Crowley dropped the slimy aura of a daemon for a moment, and bristled with a nearly tangible malice. “It can cut anything, including the barriers between space and time. It was part of Lucifer’s original loadout. Why they called him "The Lightbringer.”

“Fine, we find the sword, we cut a hole in space, good to go.” Dean saluted him with the beer. "What's the catch?"

“To wield the first blade, you need the command symbol, and you need a Frame.” Crowley said as if talking to a particularly stupid rodent. “It’s ten feet long, you dolt.”

“Ok, we'll deal with that when we get to it. We have to find it first.” Sam said before Dean could say something worse.

“Well, the secret to the blade's location is surely hidden somewhere in all that data. You’ll need something better than the boy’s brain to dig it out, though, I think. You will need a Frame, even if you don't look up Lucifer in his little cage. But the command symbol? Easy enough. I *know* where that is. Cain has it.” Crowley said smugly.

“Cain.” Sam exchanged a look with his brother, then back at the Daemon. “Lucifer’s first pilot. Our... Ancestor. Crowley, that was ten thousand years ago.”

“As you can imagine, he’s not exactly human any more. Nothing mortal is meant to live so long.” Crowley said, somehow managing to examine his nails while casting a meaningful *look* in Dean’s direction. "Spending so much time bonded to one of those celestial abominations leaves it's... mark on a man." Crowley grinned, showing far too many teeth.

"Fine. Asshole and I will go talk to Uncle Abomination." Dean set the bottle down too sharply, and even Crowley jumped a little. "Sam, you and Kevin try and find us someone who isn't Lucifer who might be willing to help."

"And just how are we supposed to do that?" Sam spread his arms, but Kevin had already picked up the tablet again.

"Does anyone know what a Metatron is? It's buried in all the metadata floating around in here. I keep seeing it, but I don't know.. Maybe that's the search engine?" Kevin set the tablet back down with a tiny dry heave.

"I guess I have some research to do." Sam set his coffee down and gave Dean's shoulder a squeeze. "But just consider, maybe he doesn't want to be rescued, Dean."

"I'm not leaving him there." Dean snapped back. He could still feel Dick Roman crawling under their shared skin, could still hear Cas as they freefalled through the upper atmosphere. "I'm not."

"Told you, Moose. It leaves a mark on a fellow." Crowley purred as he finished his drink. "All of them do."

 


End file.
